Date of Award

Summer 8-24-2024

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Dong Xie

Abstract

There has been a great deal of study related to the impacts of traditional bullying and cyberbullying on mental health and similarities found between these variables have led researchers to question whether cyberbullying is a form of traditional bullying or its own distinct variable. By further analyzing the forms of cyberbullying, online racism and online sexual harassment, the present study aims to add to this discussion. Furthermore, there has been little research on these variables since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Considering changes in work and school lifestyles during the pandemic, analyzing the associations of online racism and online sexual harassment with mental health outcomes since 2020 can be valuable for researchers, practitioners, and other stakeholders alike. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between cyberbullying, in the forms of online racism and online sexual harassment, and mental health outcomes, in the forms of aggression and stress, following the pandemic. Specifically, this study investigated if participants with increased experience of online racism and online sexual harassment following the pandemic reported a greater experience of aggression and stress compared to those whose experience of online racism and online sexual harassment did not increase following the pandemic; furthermore, the present study tested the whether there were significant interaction effects between online sexual harassment and racial identity, as well as interaction effects between gender identity and online sexual harassment in their relationship with aggression and stress. The present study also examined whether online racism and online sexual harassment predicted aggression and stress after the experience of traditional bullying is controlled and if online racism and online sexual harassment may interact with each other in their relationship with aggression and stress. 202 participants were recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk (MURK), an online crowdsourcing platform. They completed the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10) to measure their stress and the Buss and Perry’s Aggression Questionnaire (BPAQ) to measure aggression. They also completed the Online Victimization Scale (OVS) to measure their experience of online racism and online sexual harassment as well as the Bullying Scale (BS) for their experience of bullying in the traditional format. A series of Analysis of Variance (ANOVAs) were used to examine the differences in aggression and stress of those who reported increased experience of online racism and online sexual harassment when compared to those whose experience of online racism and online sexual harassment did not increase following the pandemic; in addition, these analyses examined the interaction effects between increased online racism and racial identity as well as the interaction effects between online sexual harassment and gender identity on their relationship with aggression and stress. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses were used to determine if online racism and online sexual harassment predicted aggression and stress above and beyond the impact of traditional bullying and if online racism and online sexual harassment may interact with each other in their relationship with aggression and stress. Results showed that compared to those whose experience of online sexual harassment did not increase following the pandemic, participants with increased experience of online sexual harassment following the pandemic reported significantly greater stress but not aggression; however, there were no significant differences in stress and aggression between participants with increased experience of online racism following the pandemic and their counterparts whose such experience did not change. While results showed that compared to Caucasian participants, participants of a racial minority group reported significantly greater stress, there were no significant interaction effects between online racism and racial identity or online sexual harassment and gender identity in their relationship with aggression and stress. Additionally, hierarchical multiple regression analyses showed online racism and online sexual harassment predicted aggression and stress above and beyond traditional bullying; however, no interaction effect of online racism and online sexual harassment was found on their relationship with stress and aggression. Based on these results, it can be concluded that online racism and online sexual harassment are not forms of traditional bullying because they contribute to mental health outcomes above and beyond traditional bullying. This conclusion has important theoretical implications in that it suggests that researchers cannot assume that forms of cyberbullying have the same associations with mental health outcomes as traditional bullying and encourages future researchers to focus on these separate variables (online racism and online sexual harassment). It can also be concluded that those who have experienced online racism and online sexual harassment following the pandemic possess different relationships in terms of mental health outcomes than those who have experienced traditional bullying. This conclusion has important practical implications in that it suggests that stakeholders may need to approach the prevention and treatment of online racism and online sexual harassment differently than they have approached traditional bullying in the past. Future research could benefit from focusing on examining the impact of these interventions or treatments on online racism and online sexual harassment, where research is scarce.

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